Like You've Been Here Before
by rebecca-in-blue
Summary: "Nightcrawler asks what part of Germany he's from, but Erik is in no mood to wax nostalgic." Missing and extended scenes from X2, featuring all main characters.
1. Mothertongue (various)

_X2_ was my favorite movie until _First Class_ was released. I wrote this story to give my favorite characters a few more significant scenes. The scenes will likely not go in order, but jump around through the movie a bit.

For my own reference: 86th story, 7th story for _X-Men_.

* * *

"I didn't mean to snoop," the Nightcrawler says to Jean Grey, and his thick German accent startles Erik. His dark blue skin and the map of curlicued scars all over it, his reptile-yellow eyes, his tail - none of these are shocking to Erik, but at the sound of a German accent, he raises his eyebrows and turns to Mystique.

"You didn't tell me he was German," he murmurs, not wanting anyone else to overhear - although he supposes there's no point in hoping for that when the Wolverine and his hyper-acute senses are nearby.

Mystique shrugs. "I didn't know," she says. "I told you, Stryker and his people captured him outside Boston, in an abandoned church."

Storm is standing a few feet away from them, just behind Jean and Nightcrawler, and at Mystique's words, she turns to face them, looking slightly horrified. How could Mystique have known Kurt's location so specifically? Professor Xavier always suspected that she and Magneto had their own means of locating new mutants, but even he didn't know exactly what it was.

"How do you know that?" she asks Mystique suspiciously.

Mystique pointedly ignores her.

Erik walks over to Nightcrawler, his footsteps crunching loudly on the dead leaves underfoot. He wants to know if Stryker's mind-cotrol serum had exactly the same effects on this mutant that they had on him. "Can you remember attacking the president?" he asks.

Jean glares at him. "I told you we already asked him that," she mutters, a bit annoyed.

But Nightcrawler doesn't seem annoyed. "I could see it happening," he answers, nodding. "I didn't want to do it, but I couldn't stop." He's obviously still disturbed by the memory, but it's almost as if talking about it seems to help him.

Erik suddenly remembers that Charles had suggested that to him once, long ago. He'd told him that talking about painful memories could make them more bearable. But Erik hadn't even considered the idea.

Kurt goes on, "It was like... like..." he pauses and blows out a breath, frustrated, when the English word won't come to him. "..._ein Albtraum_," he finishes.

Erik raises his head sharply at the word. _Ein Albtraum_. He hasn't heard it in years, but of course he still remembers what it means. _A nightmare_. He knows nightmares all too well. He knows what it's like to feel that your entire life has become a nightmare that you can't wake up from.

He supposes that Nightcrawler probably doesn't remember being injected with Stryker's mind-control serum. Erik couldn't remember it until it had happened to him several times, which was why he couldn't warn Charles soon enough. Still, perhaps there was a chance that Nightcrawler could recall something.

"And do you remember anything from before you attacked the president?" he asks.

For a split-second, he doesn't understand why Nightcrawler's eyes suddenly widen and his mouth falls open, or why he looks at him with such delighted surprise.

And then, in the next split-second, he realizes that instead of asking Nightcrawler that question in English, like he'd meant to, he's just asked it in German. For the first time in... God, he can't even remember how many years, he's spoken German, as fluently as ever, and without even meaning to.

Then Nightcrawler starts talking a mile a minute - in German, of course - asking Erik how he learned the language and where he's from. "Your accent is German. Are you from Germany?" he asks eagerly. "What region are you from? How did you find your way to America?"

But Erik is in no mood to wax nostalgic about his homeland. Sometimes, he has been tempted to return to Germany, just for a visit. He knows that there are so many mutants there, just waiting to be discovered - powerful young mutants that he could recruit to his cause, and speaking the language gives him an advantage that Charles doesn't have. But he's never done it. Erik hasn't even set foot in the country since the 1970s. Ever since the Olympics in Munich in 1980, he's been more convinced than ever that Germany wants to kill him.

Storm and Jean are both looking from him to Nightcrawler, a bit taken aback, and then Jean's expression changes, as if she's just remembered something. Nightcrawler is rushing on excitedly, but when he finally stops to draw a breath, Jean says, "That's right. The professor said you - " but she stops abruptly, looking awkward.

Her words are enough to put Erik on edge. Charles knows things about him - _many_ things about him - that Erik doesn't want him telling his X-Men, or anyone else. "He said that I _what_?" he asks Jean warily.

She purses her lips, then answers, "He just mentioned once that you could speak a lot of different languages. It came up one day when we were discussing second mutations - you know, mutants who have more than one ability, like... well, like me, or Logan."

Erik can't help feeling a twinge of jealousy. _He_ would like to have that conversation with Charles. He still missed discussing things with that man. Sometimes they used to stay up all night, just talking and playing chess. Mutants who had two or more abilities had always fascinated Erik... but _he_ didn't have a second mutation. How had his name come up?

Perhaps Jean is gleaning a little of his thoughts, because just then, she goes on softly, "He said you spoke a lot of different languages. He said you could learn new ones so quickly that sometimes he thought it might be a second mutation."

For one second, Erik considers the idea. It's true that he's always had a gift for languages... but no, it's simply easier for him because he had been raised bilingually, speaking both German and Yiddish. Charles doesn't understand because he's only ever spoken English. And in the next second, Erik pushes Charles's idea away from him. It's an old, uncomfortably familiar feeling. It hasn't gotten any easier since the first time that he did it years ago - on the beach in Cuba, holding Charles's head in his lap, when he first had to push away the idea that they could be on the same side.

"It isn't a second mutation," he says firmly.

To his surprise, Jean actually laughs a little. "Wow," she says softly, "that's exactly what Professor Xavier said you would do. I remember, I asked him, 'Have you ever told him that?' and the professor said, 'No, he would just scoff and say it isn't.'"

Erik doesn't answer for a moment, too surprised to speak. Did Charles really say that about him? Could he still predict Erik's responses so perfectly, even after all these years?

"He presumes to know me rather well," Erik mutters, more to himself than to anyone else.

_I do, don't I?_ Charles's voice suddenly asks, out of nowhere.

Erik jerks a bit in surprise and glances around him - it sounded so clear, so _real_, as if Charles were right here with him. But that was impossible. Charles was miles away, and likely Stryker was manipulating his mind so that his old friend didn't even understand what was really happening.

_You imagined that,_ Erik tells himself. He was an old man who was just hearing things in the noises of the forest. But for the rest of the evening, in every silence, he can't help waiting, listening, hoping to hear Charles's voice again.


	2. Smoke (Wolverine, Mystique)

This chapter is set around the same point in the movie as the previous one. I've always thought that the "night in the forest" has a lot of fanfic potential. I think this chapter could be considered either slighty AU, or canon by a stretch of the imagination.

_Huge_ thanks to those readers who left feedback on the first chapter. Your reviews keep me encouraged. :)

* * *

Logan hates the idea of working together with Magneto and Mystique, but they have valuable information on Stryker that the team needs. Magneto says that Stryker has access to some sort of mind-control serum; it's very powerful, he warns them, and it's how he got Magneto to tell him where to find Cerebro while he was in prison. He says that Stryker is almost certainly using it on Professor Xavier and Scott, and that when they reach his base at Alkali Lake tomorrow, Scott will likely try to attack them, just like Nightcrawler tried to attack the president.

Logan grimaces at this. As much as he still thinks that Scott is a dick, he doesn't want to have to fight the guy, either - but he might not have a choice. To ward off the building stress, he pulls a cigar from his pocket, but Jean shoots him a pleading look before he can light up. So he sighs, turns away from the campfire that John made for them, and walks off into the woods to smoke.

The dead leaves underfoot are so loud that even without his keen hearing, he would hear the footsteps of whoever follows him. For a second, he thinks that it must be Jean, and when he turns around and sees Mystique, he damn near drops his cigar. Her blue skin blends in with the darkness, but her yellow eyes stand out from it, and the effect is as creepy as something out of a horror movie.

"The fuck do you want?" Logan snaps, trying to hide his nerves.

"A cigarette," she answers immediately.

Logan didn't know what answer he was expecting, but it wasn't that. He's silent for a moment, taken aback, and then he glares at her and says, "They're cigars, and you can't have one." He doesn't have many left, and even if he did, he sure wouldn't share one with _her_. Besides, they're damn expensive.

He turns away from her again, walks a bit further, and lights his cigar. They're damn expensive, but they're worth it, he thinks as he takes the first drag, savoring the rich flavor. But he can't enjoy it for long before he hears Mystique following him again.

"Smoking doesn't impact my health like it does for other people," she says casually as she approaches him, "because of the way my cells can regenerate. It's probably the same for you." She pauses, and Logan glances at her, confused and suspicious. Why is she suddenly so damn talkative?

"That's why I stay so young, too," she adds, and _this_ gets Logan's interest. Is she saying that she doesn't age? Like him?

Logan pulls the cigar from his mouth and turns his head to look at her fully. "You mean... you don't age?" he asks slowly.

"No, I age. I just do it more slowly."

Oh. So she isn't really _like him_, after all. He tells himself that he never wanted to have anything in common with _her_ anyway, but still, it's a lonely feeling to be the only mutant who never ages. Someday, years from now, everyone that he knows will be dead, but he'll have barely aged a day, just like Stryker said. He stares off into the forest again and takes another drag on his cigar.

"I'm actually just a few years younger than Erik," Mystique goes on. "You wouldn't know it, would you?"

Logan decides that he's heard enough. "Why the hell you are telling me this?" he snaps, not looking at her.

"I'll shut up if you give me a cigar," she replies immediately.

For a moment, Logan fantasizes about unsheathing his claws and stabbing her again, like he did on Liberty Island. Maybe he could even give her two perfectly symmetrical claw marks, one on either side of her abdomen. The thought is tempting... but right Magneto is right there - just a few yards away, even though the darkness and the trees make it seem further. Logan can't risk pissing him off when he's this close by. Besides, Mystique would probably be too fast for him, anyway. So he just pulls a cigar from his pocket and hands it to her.

Mystique immediately lights up and takes a long drag, and Logan can see the tension leeching out of her body, not unlike his does when he smokes. He tries not to to stare, but he can't help noticing as her lithe, blue limbs slowly relax, and he can tell that it's been a long time since her last smoke. He knows how it sets your body on your edge, and the sweet relief when it finally comes.

"Ah," Mystique says softly, after a long exhale. She stares away into the forest, savoring the cigar, and then she looks over at Logan again. Her heavy-lidded eyes suddenly seem a brighter shade of yellow.

"Thanks," she says. Her voice has gone low and husky, but there's genuine gratitude in it too, and Logan is surprised by that - almost as surprised as he is with himself for giving her the cigar in the first place. Anyone watching would think that they were two friends, enjoying a smoke in the woods together. The idea makes Logan's skin bristle, and he glances self-consciously over his shoulder at the rest of the group. The flames from the campfire make the shadows of the trees leap and flicker around them.

Mystique follows his gaze, then takes another drag on the cigar. The glowing butt of her cigar burns brighter as she inhales, casting her blue face in an orange light. "I can't do it around Erik," she says as she exhales. She watches the gray smoke disappear into the inky blackness of the forest, then adds, "He hates it when I smoke."

Mystique falls silent for a moment, remembering the last time that she'd tried smoking around Erik. It was years ago now, and it had been one of the few times that he'd actually yelled at her. "Yes, that's exactly what I want to happen, Mystique!" he'd shouted. "I want to survive the damn _Holocaust_ just so I can die from second-hand smoke!"

She'd been so astonished at his outburst that her jaw dropped, and the still-lit cigarette fell from the mouth to her floor. It wasn't his yelling that shocked her, but the fact that he'd mentioned surviving the Holocaust. Erik almost never talked about that, much less used it to make people do what he wanted. Eventually, they agreed that she could still smoke, as long as she didn't do it near him.

"Yeah," Logan says softly, bringing her back to the present. "Xavier hates it when I smoke, too."

Mystique's eyes narrow. "He hates it when people don't do what he wants them to," she says angrily, and Logan turns to look at her again, suspicious. She sounds as if she has some sort of personal vendetta against Xavier... but why would she? Logan had heard Xavier talk about how he and Magneto used to be friends, but he'd never once heard him mention Mystique. Did they used to know each other, somehow?

"I used to be like you," Mystique adds, and before Logan can ask her what the hell she means by that, she says it again, slowly, emphasizing each word. "I was just... like... you."

With that, she takes one long, last drag, mutters, "Thanks for the cigar," and slinks away into the darkness like a cat.


	3. En Route (ensemble)

So things are still moving along in order, and this chapter is set shortly after the previous one. It's my attempt at something funny. Again, many thanks to those of who've taken the time to review this story. I value your feedback so much.

* * *

Even with the speed of their jet, the trip to Alkali Lake the next morning feels long, uncomfortable, and awkward, with Magneto and Mystique sitting against one wall, and the rest of them on the other side. At one point, John gets up and walks over to where Storm and Jean are sitting at the front of the jet, piloting.

"Hey, I don't like uncomfortable silences. Isn't there a radio in this thing?" he asks, looking at all the knobs and buttons on the control panel. But he backs off and sits down again after Logan shoots him a warning glare. Jean overhears Bobby mutter, "Why don't you just sit down and sleep like you do in class?"

Jean isn't sure exactly where Magneto finds the school brochure. They keep a few on the jet, but they have to be very careful to only show them to other mutants, for the brochures refer to the school as what it truly is - not a harmless prep school, but a haven for mutants, a refuge from discrimination, a safe place to learn how to control their powers. Magneto finds one and spends a long moment staring at the front flap, which is printed with the school's unofficial motto, the words that Professor Xavier is always quoting to students and staff.

_Anonymity is a mutant's first defense._

"Anonymity," Magneto says slowly, reading it. "A mutant's first defense."

There's an edge to his voice that makes Jean wary. "Yeah, that's why Professor Xavier fought the Mutant Regristration Act so hard," she puts in defensively.

"How he's changed his tune," Magneto says, his voice suddenly casual again, as he flips through the brochure. "I can remember when he had us registering with the CIA, to be part of their new mutant division."

Jean exchanges a surprised glance with Storm, then looks over her shoulder at Magneto, debating whether or not to believe him. She knows that he and Professor Xavier go way back, but it's almost impossible for Jean to imagine the professor ever wanting mutants to register with the government in any way.

"And now his credo is... _anonymity_," Magneto goes on. "Secrecy. If Charles wants to live his own life that way, it's his choice, but it doesn't give him the right to advocate that lifestyle for all mutants."

"It's safer for mutants," Storm argues. She looks eager for a fight, and Jean grimaces internally. Storm and Magneto butting heads is the last thing that she needs right now.

And it seems that Magneto is equally eager to argue his side. "It isn't safer. It's merely easier, in the short term, to assimilate rather than fight for equal treatment. But living that way doesn't bring about any progress. It doesn't end the pogroms."

"Please," Storm scoffs angrily. "Your goal has never been equality. It's superiority."

Jean notices John looking back and forth between Storm and Magneto as they argue, as if he's watching a tennis match. He, Bobby, and Rogue shouldn't be hearing this; they're still too young and impressionable. So Jean tries to cut in. "Look, now isn't the time to-"

"Charles's goal isn't equality, either," Magneto interrupts. "It's _anonymity_. It's living in the _closet_. That's what _he's_ doing, you realize. He's living in the closet - in more ways than one, I imagine."

For as long as Jean, Storm, or Scott have known Professor Xavier, the man has been old, bald, and wheelchair-bound - their safe, asexual teacher. None of them could imagine him with hair, much less walking, much less with a sex life. For that reason, Magneto's meaning doesn't sink in right away.

Storm looks over at him, puzzled. "What's that supposed to m - " but then she stops abruptly, and her eyes widen with understanding. She opens her mouth, gapes for words for a moment, then closes it, and even though she doesn't say anything, Jean can guess at what she's thinking. She's trying to figure out whether Magneto is simply saying that Professor Xavier is gay - or more specifically, that the two of them were once a relationship. The professor has always referred to Magneto as his _old friend_, often with a current of his fondness in his voice. The silence grows uncomfortable to an almost physical degree.

"You didn't need to tell us that," Jean snaps, glaring at Magneto.

Magneto glances between her and Storm, looking intrigued. "Do you mean to say that you really didn't know? Haven't you ever wondered why - "

"It's none of our business," Jean interrupts, practically yelling. She's never wondered about Professor Xavier's sexuality before, and right now, she's trying very hard not to think about how Magneto might know what he's implying. This isn't something that any of them need to know about the professor and their team's adversary.

"They didn't know," Magneto says to Mystique, as if he's bragging about something.

"Of course they didn't," Mystique mutters, and they both chuckle. Jean realizes that they're _amused_ by this, by how uncomfortable she and Storm are. She vainly hopes that maybe Magneto's implication has gone over John, Bobby, and Rogue's heads... but then she overhears John whisper to Bobby, "Dude, are you hearing this? Oh God, I'm getting a mental image." Magneto hears it too, and out of the corner of her eye, Jean sees him smirk. She turns fully in her seat to look at them.

"It's none of our business," she says again, and John, Bobby, and Rogue know that she's addressing them because she's talking in her sternest teacher voice, the one that she uses for failing students. "And I don't want to hear any more about it - " She pauses and glares at Magneto here. " - or so help me, I will turn this jet around."

Magneto just smiles, then suddenly turns to Nightcrawler and says something to him in German. Nightcrawler brightens at hearing the language again, and they talk for some time. This puts Jean on edge too, and at the first pause in their conversation, she asks, "What are you talking about?" at the same time that Storm demands loudly, "What are you telling him?"

"Nothing," Magneto answers, in that light, casual tone again. "You really shouldn't have to ask. We're just reminiscing about Germany."

For the rest of the trip to Alkali Lake, Storm keeps glancing at Magneto suspiciously, and she decides that later, after Scott and the professor are safe again, and as soon as Magneto is out of earshot, she'll ask Kurt what he and Magneto were talking about. Jean knows this because Storm's thoughts are loud and angry, like one of the thunderstorms that she can summon up so easily. She pictures Scott's face in her mind and tries to fight off the pending headache.

"Just get me through this flight," she mutters.


	4. Waiting (John, Bobby, Rogue)

I don't know why, but this chapter was _so_ hard for me to write. I'm pleased with the way it (finally) turned out. It was fun to write a chapter focusing on just the X-kids.

* * *

It angers John that he has to stay behind in the jet while the rest of them storm Stryker's base on Alkali Lake. It annoys him that Bobby and Rogue accept it so easily, willing to just wait here without putting up a fight. Maybe if all three of them had pushed to sneak onto the base with Dr. Grey and the others, it might've happened. It nauseates him how Bobby and Rogue sit side-by-side, holding hands and looking at each other with reassuring smiles. Feeling more like a third wheel than ever, John paces the length of the jet, frustrated and impatient, and keeps glancing out the narrow windows.

Outside, the snow stretches as far as he can see, and it hushes the world like a heavy white blanket. It's deathly quiet - _too_ quiet - which only makes John nervous and worried about what might be happening to his teachers on the base right now. To distract himself, he thinks back to Magneto's words to him earlier. _You're a god among insects_, he'd said. _Never let anyone tell you differently. _He flicks the flame of his shark's-head lighter on and off, on and off, an old nervous habit. John never goes anywhere without his lighter. He doesn't feel right - he doesn't feel _safe_ \- without it on him, and it occurs to him suddenly that Magneto probably feels the same way without any metal around him.

He stops pacing and says suddenly, "I wonder what a pogrom is."

Bobby and Rogue stop gazing into each others' eyes and turn to look at him, as if they've just remembered that he's there. "What?" Bobby asks, distracted.

"A pogrom," John repeats, as he resumes pacing. "I heard Magneto say it earlier, when he was talking about how hiding doesn't help." He pauses, remembering again how Magneto had scorned a life of secrecy and anonymity. He'd sounded so confident, so sure of himself, and he'd made a good point, too. Why _should_ all mutants have to live in the closet? Professor Xavier had always seemed so wise... but what sort of life did he _really_ want for them?

"He said it doesn't end the pogroms," he goes on, clenching and unclenching one hand around his lighter. The thoughtful expression on his face worries Bobby. It's clear that Magneto's words left an impression on him. "But what's a pogrom?"

They're all surprised when Rogue answers softly, "It's an organized killing of Jews."

Bobby gapes at her, horrified. "But they don't..." he fumbles for words. "People don't _do_ that."

Rogue gives him a tiny, sad smile. Bobby can be so endearingly naive sometimes. "Well, no, not here and now, but they had them in Europe for centuries," she explains. "I think maybe they still do in, um... some places."

Rogue doesn't tell them - because she doesn't really understand it herself - that she knows what pogroms are because a tiny sliver of Magneto still remains in her head, leftover from when he touched her on Liberty Island. Almost immediately after they all returned safely to the mansion, Professor Xavier had gone into Rogue's head and removed almost all traces of his old friend that he found there. He never said a word of it to anyone - and he was so powerful that Rogue herself was never even aware of it - and he never deliberated over whether it was the right thing to do. Of course it was. He'd told himself that a young girl like Rogue didn't need someone like Erik, who'd hurt and been hurt and lost so much, inside her head. It would only hurt her more.

But whenever Magneto moved a heavy weight, like a satellite dish or a submarine, he couldn't always gather up every single scrap of metal nearby, too. So too was Professor Xavier unable to erase every trace of Magneto from Rogue's mind. A tiny fragment of him still remained inside her head - just enough for her to know what pogroms are.

John sits down hard in the bench across from Bobby and Rogue, and a long, somber silence falls in the jet, as the three of them try to imagine what it must feel like to be persecuted - _killed_ \- for centuries, just because of the way you were born, without even any special powers to defend yourself. After the soldiers storming their school, their safe haven, in the middle of the night, after the policemen pointing guns at them outside Bobby's parents' house, it isn't a far stretch for any of them. John thinks about the grim, black-and-white photos of concentration camps that he saw in his history textbook, and he thinks of the Stryker's soldiers and their heavy boots moving through the broken glass of the mansion's windows.

Remembering the attack on the mansion pushes John to a decision, and he flicks his lighter one last time, bolts up from the bench, and jams the button on the jet's control panel to lower the ramp. Bobby and Rogue try to talk him out of it, but he cuts them off with, "I'm sick of this kid's table shit," pulls on his jacket, and charges outside. He never had a family who loved him, like they did. What did he have to lose? And how could they possibly understand?

He is a powerful mutant. He could help Magneto and the others take down Stryker. He knows that he might die inside the base, but even if he survives, he never plans to return to the jet, or to the mansion. He'll find Magneto and Mystique and leave the base with them. He's sure that they'll take him - and that they won't treat like him a kid, like Professor Xavier and Dr. Grey do. _You're a god among insects,_ he hears inside his head again.

_Pyro_, he tells himself over and over as he strides across the snow to the base. _You're Pyro now_. He feels ready for a fight, with blood and adrenaline pumping through him so fiercely that he barely even notices the cold, harsh wind blowing at him. He doesn't waste a thought on Bobby and Rogue, uncertainly watching him walk away from the jet's ramp. He's left them behind - and in a way, he's left _John_ behind, too. But it's a good feeling. It's almost like, for the first time in his life, he knows who he really is.


	5. Confession (Charles, Erik)

I never liked how this scene played out in the movie. I mean, Charles sees that Erik's been beaten up, and they start talking about _Wolverine_? As a Cherik shipper, that's always bugged me. But I'm not too pleased with how my take on the scene turned out, either. I hope that some of you might enjoy it, anyway. It's set earlier in the movie, during Charles's visit to Erik's plastic prison.

* * *

The hard plastic that makes up Erik's cell is smooth and shiny. The fluorescent lights overhead are harsh and too bright. It hurts Charles's eyes whenever he visits Erik, but not as much as it hurts him to see his old friend in prison. He hadn't wanted it to come to this - not again.

"And now you think taking in the Wolverine will make up for your failure with Stryker's son?" Erik asks, with a hint of anger in his tone. He knows that Charles doesn't want to _help_ Wolverine so much as he wants to _fix_ him. After all these years, his old friend is still so certain that he can fix other mutants.

Charles is silent for a moment, then he says softly, "Logan's mind is still fragile. The surgery completely wiped his memory. He can't remember what he went through." Erik says nothing, but his skin prickles uneasily.

"In a way," Charles goes on, slowly, "his amnesia is giving him a chance to start over."

His words hit Erik like a punch in the stomach. _A chance to start over. _Why would Charles say that to him? Is he still angry at him for nearly killing that girl at Liberty Island, for fighting against him for so many years? Did he just say that to be intentionally cruel, to point out that Wolverine is getting a chance that Erik never had? But no, Charles would never purposely try to hurt anyone, least of all Erik... would he?

Erik suddenly has trouble breathing. He sways slightly on his feet and grips the edge of the plastic table with one hand. He tries to fight off, but the old memory swims to the front of his mind again, as vivid as ever. _A chance to start over..._

Once, in those early, heady days, before Cuba, when they were all at the mansion together, training, one night after Erik had woken up screaming from another nightmare, Charles had opened his stupid, naive, young mouth and offered, "Erik, if you wanted me to, I could fix it so that you didn't even remember what happened in Auschwitz."

He had barely finished the sentence when Erik, too furious to even translate his thoughts into English, suddenly started screaming at him in German. He'd grabbed the front of Charles's shirt and shaken him so fiercely that he'd almost gotten whiplash. He'd gone on screaming in Charles's face until Charles was finally able to get free from him and back away, apologizing.

"Erik, I'm sorry," he kept repeating. "That was a terrible thing for me to say. I'm sorry. Now please, calm your mind." But Erik was still shaking with anger - he was shaking, and so was most of the metal in the room - and it had taken Charles some time to talk him down from it. He had never seen Erik lose his temper like that before, and it had frightened him into a few sleepless nights of his own.

_A chance to start over. _Does Charles still wish that Erik that taken him up on his offer?

Erik says nothing, but of course Charles knows him well enough to tell that something is wrong. He reaches out with his telepathy, intending just to glean a bit of Erik's thoughts, but the memory hits him full-force, as vivid as it was for Erik. He flinches and jerks in his wheelchair a bit, for in the quiet plastic cell, he can suddenly see again Erik's wide, furious eyes, and hear again his angry voice yelling in German. Even though Charles didn't speak the language, he was fairly certain that Erik had screamed, _Don't you dare, don't you dare _over and over.

It's a strange feeling. Looking back now, so many years later, Charles realizes that Erik had actually been _young_ then - so young and so devastatingly handsome. But Erik had never seemed young to him at the time. He had never seemed the same age as Charles. He'd always seemed so much older.

"Erik..." Charles says, his voice strained, when the memory fades a bit and he can talk again, "you know I didn't mean - " But then he stops abruptly and falls silent. He raises his head and looks hard at Erik, an old man now, and when he speaks again, he sounds as if he's been wanting to say this for years. "All right, yes, I wanted to do it, I'll admit that. I wanted to erase Shaw from your memory. I wanted to do it very much."

He wheels his chair closer to Erik, who's taken aback by such sudden honesty. He and Charles have a long habit of talking around subjects like this, not directly addressing them.

"And I _would_ have done it back then, if you'd let me," Charles goes on boldly. "If you had said yes, I would've wiped those years from your memory in a minute. But now..." He pauses and shakes his head. "...it would've changed you, Erik. It would've changed who you are, and I wouldn't have wanted that."

Erik is silent for a second, unsure whether to feel touched or angered by this. But the anger wins out. It always does with him, it seems. He narrows his eyes and says flatly, "I'm in prison, Charles - _again_ \- and I know it tears you apart to see me in here. You expect me to believe that you wouldn't have wanted to prevent this?"

Charles hesitates before answering. He's never mentioned to anyone how hard it is for him to see Erik in prison. He hadn't realized that it was so obvious.

"It's true," he insists, in that quiet, urgent voice that Erik knows so well. "I'm not trying to fix you - not anymore." He'd tried to fix Erik once, in those days before Cuba. He'd believed that he could fix him and put him back together, just as if he were a picture-puzzle or a broken toy, and he knew that was one reason why things had gone so horribly wrong between them. Charles knew too that Erik believed that he was trying to fix Logan now, just as he'd once tried to fix him, but he was wrong.

But Erik shakes his head sadly in response, leaning against one wall of his cell. "It's too late for us, Charles," he says softly.

Without even having to read his mind, his tone alone is enough to set off alarm bells in Charles's head. "Erik, what have you done?" he asks, as panic rises up inside him. "What have you told Stryker?"

Erik sighs heavily and answers, "Everything," and Charles turns in his chair, wheeling himself desperately, frantically, back to the door, screaming for Scott with both his voice and his mind. They have to get back to the school. They have to get back to the students. Perhaps there's still time to... but then the gas hits them. They both slump limply against the walls of the cell, but Charles is still just conscious enough to hear when Erik goes on.

"I told him..." Erik adds slowly, fighting to stay lucid, "...the way you wear your hat, the way you sip your tea."

Even through his gas-addled mind, Charles recognizes the words almost immediately, the lyrics of an old song. Erik knows how he's always liked Frank Sinatra. But why would he be quoting him now, of all times?

"The way your smile just beams," Erik continues, "the way you sing off-key."

_The gas..._ Charles thinks. _It must be making me hear things. _His eyelids are heavy and drooping, but he struggles to keep them open, for he can just make out Erik crawling across his cell towards him.

"The memory of all that - they can't take that away," Erik's voice says, barely audible now, and just before Charles passes out, he thinks that he feels Erik's hand brush his.


	6. Mourning (X-Men)

Many thanks to all of you who've followed along with this story. I hope you'll enjoy this last chapter - and please let me know what you think!

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They return to the school bereft, grief-stricken, one team member short, and it isn't until after they return that Charles fully realizes how damaging Stryker's raid on the school was. He hates himself for not being there when it happened - just as he hated himself, years ago, for not being there when Shaw attacked the CIA headquarters, murdered Darwin, and left Raven with a fear in her heart that she never fully recovered from.

There are so many repairs to be made to the school. There are bullets embedded in the expensive, wood-paneled walls - and looking at them, before he can help it, Charles wishes that Erik were here, to remove them all with one sweep of his hand. But he pushes the thought away immediately, with a wave of anger so intense that it almost makes him nauseous. Erik had tried to use _him_ as a weapon of genocide. He'd tried to use Charles to wipe out every human on the planet - and he'd very nearly done it, too. How can Charles possibly still be wishing that he was here? How can he possibly still be thinking of that man as a friend?

God, he disgusts himself.

There's broken glass in Charles's study, in the kitchen, in almost every room on the ground floor and a few on the upper ones. Some patches of it are too big to step over, so Kurt volunteers to sweep it all up for them, since he can teleport from one side to the other without cutting his feet. As he pushes the broom through the shards, he shakes his head and mutters something in German. Charles thinks that he catches the word_ Kristallnacht_.

The worst damage of all, though, is in the young, scared students who don't feel safe here anymore, who cry when Charles gently tells them that Dr. Grey won't be teaching them anymore. He almost wants to cry along with them. How to ever fix this mess?

To lift their spirits, Storm brings them weeks and weeks of perfect, sunny weather. It's a tremendous effort for her, Charles knows, to create such gorgeous days when she's so depressed over losing Jean, but she does it, and they all appreciate it. Jubilee and a few other students decide to take advantage of the sunshine to plant a flowerbed on the grounds near the main building of the school. Charles assumes that they're doing it to fill the time until classes start again - Scott isn't ready to start teaching again, and no one's ready to discuss who's going to take over Jean's classes - and it isn't until they're almost done with the project that he discovers that it has something to do with Jean.

One afternoon, Jubilee pats the earth down gently, then stands back and looks at the colorful blossoms. "That was the classroom that Dr. Grey always taught in," she says, gesturing to the nearest window. "She would've been able to look right outside and see these. She would've liked that, don't you think?"

Even when they don't realize it, the students are more of a comfort to Charles than he can say. He's grateful that Piotr was able to get away through the escape tunnels and lead so many of the younger ones to safety. They returned to the mansion at almost the same time that the team returned from Alkali Lake - a bit dirty and hungry, but none the worse for wear. "It was kinda fun, like a camping trip," Harry had said.

The raid on the mansion was terrible, but certainly, it could've been much worse. It frightens Charles to think that once, he hadn't even believed those escape tunnels were necessary. Erik was the one who'd convinced him to add them, shortly after they arrived at the mansion after Shaw destroyed the CIA headquarters. He'd drawn up plans and didn't give Charles a moment's peace until he agreed to have them built. "You need to have wiring put in, too," Erik had told him. "You'll need lights in there to see by. They'll come at night."

His tone as he said those words - _They'll come at night _\- was so ominous and grim that it sent a shudder down Charles's spine. "What do you mean?" he'd asked naively, his skin prickling.

"They'll come at night," Erik repeated, his voice even darker. "Like when they emptied the ghetto."

So Erik had been right all along - about that, at least. Stryker and his men had come at night.

Charles feels fairly caught off-guard when Scott barges into his study one afternoon. Charles knows him well enough to tell that he's just been crying, even without having to see his eyes, and even though Scott looks angry, not sad.

"And just what the hell has Magneto lost?" he asks furiously, spitting the words out as if they're poison, as soon as he enters the room. This is the first time that he's set foot in Charles's study since before Alkali Lake. Since they returned to the mansion, Scott has mostly gravitated between his room, the kitchen, and the garage, where he spends hours burying his emotions in the cars, sometimes removing the same engine part and putting it back in over and over. He's barely spoken to Charles, or Storm, or the students.

Charles lays his pen down on his desk. He's grateful that Scott seems to finally be getting some of his emotions out, but he's careful not to show it. "Scott, you know I - " he begins.

"You said there'd been casualties," Scott interrupts, his voice rising. He waves his arms around a bit as he goes on. "When we were at the White House. You said there'd been losses on _both_ sides. Well, I'd like to know what casualties there've been on Magneto's side! Just what the fuck has _he_ lost in all this?"

_Me_, Charles very nearly answers, but he bites back the word.

"He hasn't lost a goddamn _thing_," Scott grounds out, before Charles can say a word. He clenches his fists, as if resisting the urge to pick up a paperweight from Charles's desk and hurl it through the window. "He left that base with Mystique and John, and _he_ didn't lose anyone! And we had to come back here like _this_ \- like fucking this!"

Charles has never heard Scott swear so much. "I don't - " he starts to say, but Scott interrupts him again.

"I just don't know what the hell she was thinking," Scott says, his voice quieter now. He turns sharply away from Charles and glares out the window, but he doesn't see the grounds of the mansion. Instead, he sees Jean in front of the jet on Alkali Lake, her arms raised, as if she were conducting an orchestra, as the high walls of cold water roar all around her. "Why would she _do_ that? Why wouldn't she_ listen_ to me when I told her not to?"

There's much damage, so many repairs to be made.

Scott is quiet for a moment, but Charles doesn't try to say anything this time. He senses that what Scott really needs is for him to just listen. Sure enough, Scott's anger soon deflates a bit, and he walks back across the study, sighs, and sits down hard in the chair opposite Charles's desk.

"Sorry, Professor," he mumbles, hanging his head. "I didn't mean to sound angry at you. just... I can't..." He tries to go on, but his voice trembles too much and he falls silent again.

Charles reaches one hand across his desk and touches Scott's arm. He moves slowly, carefully, concerned that Scott might get up and start yelling again. Some people, men especially, can never allow themselves to be comforted. Erik certainly never had. But Scott, thank God, isn't like that. When Charles touches his arm, he can actually feel some of the tension leave Scott's body - and for the first time since Jean's death, he feels a glimmer of hope that they can heal from it.

**FIN**


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